


Our Memories

by Alaylith



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Fear, Friendship, Gen, Injury, concussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alaylith/pseuds/Alaylith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prisoner is visited by a shadow who is haunted by memories</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>(Entry for Watson's Woes Challenge12 June 2010; you can see the Challenge at the end)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Memories

The cell is dark and damp, dusk settling in the streets and slivers of light filter through the bars of the little window. Only some noises of the prisoners trying to sleep and of the guards walking their rounds are resonating in the dark halls.  
  
A man lies on the cot, staring at the ceiling, one hand behind his head and the other resting on his leg, tapping a rhythm only he can hear. Looking at him you may not notice, but the man is waiting.  
  
Waiting for the time when the sun is gone and the moon has not yet risen, when there is no light left and the world appears to be sleeping. Or dead.  
  
It is the time when **he** comes…  
  
+++  
  
_Watson follows his friend’s wandering with amused eyes, trying to hide his observation behind a book. Holmes came back from a meeting with Lestrade, muttering about the incompetence of the police force and started to wander through their shared rooms. From the window to the fireplace, from the fireplace to the chemistry table, back to the window and the round starts from the beginning._  
  
After about thirty minutes he stopped his mutterings and is now glaring at the ground, a cold pipe clenched between his lips. Watson chuckles lightly, eyes lowering to the rug.  
  
“No, there isn’t a tread yet, my dear fellow,” Holmes says and Watson jerks before looking at his book again. Holmes stops in front of him and looks down at him amused.  
  
“No sense trying to hide now, I know that you were watching me the whole time.”  
  
“Hm, you do?” Watson challenges, eyes concentrated on the pages, before the book is lifted from his hands. Holmes holds the books and points a finger at it.  
“It’s upside down and as far as I know you haven’t mastered that reading technique yet.”  
  
Watson blinks surprised before he starts laughing and raises his hands in surrender. Holmes eyes twinkle and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. There is nothing better than to share a laugh with your best friend.  
  
+++  
  
As the last lights leave the cell and everything is plunged into darkness steps start to resonate in the halls.  
  
The man stops to tap his hand against his leg and closes his eyes. The steps draw nearer until they stop before the cell and a shadow appears at the bars.  
  
“There you are – again. I wondered if you would come tonight,” the man drawls and waves his hand in the air. “Are you gonna stare at me again or will you finally speak to me?”  
  
Silence answers him and the hand drops to his leg again. “Suit yourself. I am not going anywhere anytime soon.”  
  
The shadow stays and silence embraces the darkness…  
  
+++  
  
_The night is dark and Holmes listens to every sound. His eyes dart from one corner to the other as he enters the alley. The only sounds besides his own steps are Watson’s right behind him. They lost their criminal when he started to run and disappeared in the night. Lestrade and his men were lost amidst the alleys, too. Halfway through the alley there is a sound he does not recognize and Watson’s gasp for breath tells him that his friend heard it as well. He can fell it in his bones… the murderer is near… Before he can take another step he hears his most feared sound, the voice of his friend stretched in fear and a push to his back propels him forward._  
“HOLMES!”  
  
+++  
  
“You have me curious,” the man tells his shadow. “Since I was caught and put here you come every night and stare at me. You always wait for the darkness, so I don’t know who you are. You have to be someone with influence, otherwise the police wouldn’t let you in here. And as I am not an interesting looking creature, it must be something I’ve done.”  
  
The man sits up on his cot, rests his arms on his knees and looks at the shadow from the corner of his eye. “Did I hurt someone you know? Maybe that man I robbed last month? Or the boy I beat up before that? Hm, but for something so minor you wouldn’t come night for night…”  
  
No movement from the shadow and the man shrugs his shoulders. “Oh come on, tell me! What did I do?”  
  
“You hurt the man that is most important to me,” the shadow answers finally.  
  
The man looks thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Maybe that last man… I hit him pretty hard, didn’t I?” His eyes return to the shadow, a slow smirk forming on his lips. “Did I kill him? That old bastard wasn’t worth the trouble. I did the society a favour, getting rid of that cripple.”  
  
The shadow falls silent again and the smirk grows.  
  
“I did kill him, didn’t I?”  
  
+++  
  
_Silently Holmes stares at the ground, his hands clasped tightly together to hide their shaking. The disgustingly white hospital covers of the bed rise slowly. Watson’s head is bandaged, blood damps the white and his eyes tightly closed in ever present pain._  
  
As Holmes listens to his laboured breathing, he remembers the night in the alley. The criminal hid in the alley and when they stepped near him he jumped out and tried to hit Holmes over the head. Watson stepped between them, pushed Holmes away and received the blow to his own head. Holmes still hears the deafening sound and can still see Watson lying on the ground, bleeding and unmoving.  
  
He shakes his head slightly and looks into Watson’s face. The blow was pretty bad and he hasn’t regained conscious even after three days. Holmes never feels greater fear than for Watson.  
  
He can only hope that Watson will awake soon, carry that twinkle in his eye and smile soothingly at him.  
  
Holmes can not rest before then…  
  
+++  
  
“So what do you wish to achieve staring at me the whole time?” the man asks mockingly. “Your friend will not return.”  
  
“Yes, he will,” the shadow answers and the man draws his brows together bemused.  
  
“No one can return from the dead.”  
  
“But he isn’t dead – he’s just lost,” the shadow murmurs after a short time of silence and a rattling rings from the cell door. Curiously the man rises from his bed and steps forward and in the next moment a light appears from the little lantern, illuminating the shadow for the first time.  
  
Grey eyes stare at the man through the bars, boring themselves into the eyes of the stranger and the man shudders slightly but cannot look away.  
  
“My friend will return and I will wait as long as I need to. You will not stop me, “ Sherlock Holmes announces and the man shrugs, unsure what his revealed shadow means.  
  
“What are you talking about? Why should I stop you?”  
  
“As long as you exist, he will not return,” Holmes says gravely and the shudder returns to the frame of the man.  
  
“But I will not allow that, you will cease to exist, you will disappear from this world and you will take everything that marks you, every deed you committed and every impact you had on this world with you,” Holmes swears with a hard glint in his eyes.  
  
“I am going to make sure that you will vanish and **he** will return. I will get **him** back. And if it takes forever then I will fight that long to destroy **you**.”  
  
Hate and love equally drop from the words and the man takes a surprised step back from the bars, almost leaving the small circle of light.  
  
“Why?” he asks, it being the only word he can speak and these grey, tired and sad but strong willed eyes look determined into his own.  
  
“Because **you** are **his** shadow.”  
  
+++  
  
_Holmes walks tiredly back to the hospital after having a short break from the stillness of the hospital room. Watson was still unconscious and with every day Holmes fears that he will not awaken. He just couldn’t stand being in the room any longer and took a walk through his once beloved city. But if this city is able to take his most precious possession away from him… Watson will not be the only one being lost…_  
  
As he enters the hospital and walks slowly to Watson’s room a sudden feel of despair arises in his chests and his lungs constrict when he sees several nurses in front of the room. Quickening his steps he nears the women and one recognizes him immediately.  
  
“Mr Holmes! It’s horrible! Dr. Watson is gone!”  
  
Holmes is sure that his heart stops beating and his lungs stop working. A rush fills his ears and it seems as if the whole world looses its colour. He steps through the women into the room and stares at the bed, surprised to see it empty. He expected to see the still body of his friend laying there not emptiness like the one he started to feel in his soul.  
  
“Dr. Watson suddenly awoke from his coma, but he was disoriented and didn’t know who he was or what was happening,” the nurse continues behind him and wrings her hands worryingly. “One nurse tried to calm him, but wasn’t successful so she left in search of a doctor. When they returned Dr. Watson was gone!”  
  
A first breath passes over Holmes lips again as he acknowledges the fact that Watson wasn’t gone but vanished. Then he rethinks the nurse’s statement and sighs deeply.  
  
”He couldn’t remember… anything?”  
  
“Nothing, Mr Holmes,” the nurse answers. “We think he panicked and left the hospital even though he is still so fragile…”  
  
Everything grounds to a stop and for a brief moment Holmes is consumed by panic, fear and despair, but he resolutely pushes everything into a corner of his mind (heart) and jumps around.  
  
“Why didn’t you say so immediately! I already lost time listening to you yapping around when I could have looking for him!”  
  
Without another word he storms outside and starts the wild search for his friend, calculating his condition, his tendencies and the environment, knowing that he will not rest until he finds him.  
  
And he **will** find him.  
  
+++  
  
Holmes remembers the desperate days following that one fateful day, his search, the searches of Scotland Yard, Mycroft’s searches, the searches of the Irregulars and all the searches of his informants and handymen.  
  
Watson couldn’t be found.  
  
Until this man was caught and Holmes visited him the first night.  
  
Lestrade was pale and shaky when he came to Baker Street and told Holmes of this man. At first Holmes did not believe it, could not believe it, but after seeing the man for the first time he knew.  
  
Looking at the man behind the bars, dishevelled, skinny and with a scar at his temple, eyes dark and cold, Holmes still knows it.  
  
Rising the lantern in his hand slightly, Holmes ignores everything that isn’t Watson and concentrates on that which is hidden under the shadows.  
  
He still remembers the twinkle in the brown eyes now cold with loathing, he still remembers the smile on the lips now strained in a frown and he still remembers the warmth of the soul now tainted with darkness.  
  
“You are nothing more than a shadow and I will return the light. I will keep my promise and I will get **him** back.”  
  
He looks deeply into the familiar and foreign brown eyes with resolution burning in his soul.  
  
”I will get you back, Watson. You will remember and banish the taints from your soul. You will return, you will not stay lost. And I will be waiting.”  
  
With that Holmes turns around and leaves the cell, leaves the stranger who cloaks his friend in shadows, but he will return again. And again and again, until he got back what belongs to him.  
  
He will get Watson back, no matter what or how long it will take. He will give his memories to Watson just as he had promised.  
  
Watson will return and Holmes will be awaiting him.  
  
+++  
  
_Watson pouts slightly as Holmes laughs and Watson presses the manuscript protectively to his breast. “Stop laughing! My stories are important.”_  
  
_Holmes shakes his head slightly and Watson has the urge to protrude his tongue childishly at him, but refrains – for once._  
  
_Then he sighs and drops his eyes to the ground, a melancholic smile tugging at his lips._  
  
_“They are important, because… because they keep my memories alive.”_  
  
_Holmes stops laughing and looks at him confused._  
  
_“My parents died when I was young, my brother’s dead for a long time, too. And Mary… No matter how hard I try, my memories fade with time. I can no longer recall the singing of my mother or my father’s voice. And Mary’s laughter or her scent or the warmth of her hands… I can’t remember that all.”_  
  
_He lets his eyes roam over his desk with all his little stories. “But the adventures we share, all the time we stay together, even if my memories inside me begin to fade, the stories keep them alive. The rush of a hunt, the wonder of your deductions, even the despair after your ‘death’, it is all treasured in my stories and no matter the passing time I will keep the memories forever.”_  
  
_He presents Holmes with a small smile. “No one can have such a great memory like yours, my friend. You may remember everything you wish, but I can’t… even though it is my greatest wish to never forget the time we shared in this life.”_  
  
_He returns his look to the manuscript pressed to his heart. “So my stories are important… They hold my most precious possession… all the memories that I wish to keep.”_  
  
_Holmes stares at Watson for a moment, before a small smile appears on his lips and he steps up to Watson and lays one hand on the manuscript._  
  
_“Don’t worry, my dear friend. Even if you forget and your stories do not carry all your memories, I will carry them for you. I will remember for us both and if you forget something, I will share **our memories** with you._  
  
_I promise you, Watson. I will remember everything. Forever.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge 12:  
>  _The last challenge was more along a humorous theme, so this time your challenge is to write a story in which Watson has amnesia._  
>  _You could, e.g. write a story in which he already has amnesia, or maybe you can write about how it happens and how Holmes and Watson cope with it. Just to give you a few ideas, we're sure you can come up with much more!_


End file.
